and
> The only true news is sports scores.
I fail to see the difference between these two examples. Both report on an actual outcome. Same with things like stock price movement, etc. If your point is that choosing what to report on is a means to control discourse, then I would assert that even reporting on sports scores falls in that category.
Thanks, yes I’m simple.
> Taking the past two US presidential elections, most people thought either 2016 or 2020 was fraudulent.
As far as I know this isn’t true. Most people in the US do not believe that either 2016 or 2020 were fraudulent.
For instance, here are the front pages of many newspapers after the 2016 election results: https://www.vox.com/presidential-election/2016/11/9/13572686...
Can you point to data sources that substantiate your claim?
I hope I don't have to convince you that Trump voters have little confidence in 2020 results. Here are a couple of reminders that Clinton voters felt similarly after 2016.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591291876800...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/hillary...
As others have pointed out, this doesn’t hold water. Publishing the result of some fact that people care to know about is arguably even the purest form of “news”: election results, sports scores, stock prices, etc
Where do the sports without ambiguous, controversial and contentious scores hire their bias-free referees?
This doesn't really impact the point you're trying to make, but the election was in 2016, not 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...
It used to be just whackjobs with tinfoil hats on ham radio in the desert.
Then it became a meme. But it was still a joke.
In the last few years it seems to have been weaponized, and there are now dozens, if not hundreds, of people on HN who actually believe this; if for no other reason than they've seen it written on the internet so many times. Often, like the person above, the idea is spouted with irrationally hyperbolic levels of venom and hatred.
It feels like yet another coordinated attack on the fundamentals of Western society, just like the "all elections are rigged!" crowd that, at its root turns out to be funded by governments and organizations that profit from chaos, and hope to benefit from the elimination of democracy.
The continuing attacks on journalism and journalists erode our society. If you don't understand that, then you must have slept through your civics classes.
Anyone who thinks that journalists are "some of the lowest forms of human life" just sounds unhinged, and unable to think or understand how the world works. The real world, not the imaginary dystopia of the people on the internet barking at one another.
I can't help but think that this person works on behalf of one of those groups that is trying to destroy democracy. Whether they know it, or not.
Am I obligated to disclose that I held a particular job years ago? I didn't know that was a requirement on HN. I see that you also haven't disclosed your resume and that your profile is blank. Is there a reason for that? Maybe you have a false conscience and knew it would immediately discredit you?
So far, all you've contributed to the discussion is hyperbole and name calling:
"Touchy... silly... general ignorance... boneheaded... ignorant... discourse police... propagandists... some of the lowest forms of human life... the only reasonable feelings are contempt and pity"
How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you present no facts, no cogent argument, just attacks and vitriol?
I don't think there's any point in continuing this conversation any further. You are convinced of your position beyond the ability to reason and listen. I hope that some day you find peace within yourself and the ability to imagine that other human beings are not your enemy.
You should probably also switch to decaf.
Anyway, if something you did for 20 years was years ago, then you're not the target audience of my comment. I don't want to disturb your retirement. I also admit that journalism way back in the day when you practiced it had a certain editorial sobriety that masked much of the ideological bias. Some of that is a function of the post-WWII consensus being effectively dead now. That wasn't the case back when you trod the boards. It was also much more common then for newsrooms to include working class voices. There were also many more news organizations back then, before consolidation. Those days are gone. The mask is off. People see it.
You may not like my tone, but people waste a lot of time arguing over stuff that really doesn't make a bit of difference. Sometimes ridicule, satire, and sarcasm are more effective tools of conversion than more of the same tired whinging about well-meaning people. I don't think ALL "human beings" are my enemy, just some. Do you have no enemies? I doubt that very much.
Nice twist :) but I have to add that the weather section can be quite useful too.
Sports is hardly non-political if you wanna be that guy at Thanksgiving but there's a reason it's generally considered a "safe" topic for disagreement. I was making a joke but if you want to take it literally the scores themselves are actual facts that can be reported straight, and hence "news" in the sense most people use that word.